Undertaking this assignment was truly a challenge. When we received the four assignment briefs to work with I felt overwhelmed and already stressed at the amount of work to be done within the next four weeks; create a VR space, 3D model a toy for a promotional poster, re-skin the Auckland Transport app, and lastly, complete three design sprints. Though the former daunted me, the latter came as comfort - a design sprint; a systematic methodology to follow. I intended to follow through each step-by-step and trust in the tried and tested design process. My aim was to create a meaningful way to measure progress and ease the way forward whilst warding off ‘designers block’. In hindsight the sprint diagrams were my saviour.
Process
Step into the designers mind and get an in-depth view of the creation process on my Miro pages below.
Understanding The Brief
A creative and clearly defined interpretation of the brief sets the foundation for a successful outcome. Through this process I looked at the variations of the brief provided in canvas, lecture presentations and our lecture slides and attempted to unravel the knotted strings these briefs presented. The assumption process enabled me to draw out opportunities and go big before narrowing down my focus.
Precedent Research
Research and more research. Precedents set the stage for existing products to highlight gaps in the market. I found the process of compiling inspirational material exciting as it presented opportunities for creative problem solving. Throughout this process I constantly questioned; how can I take what is already available and make improvements or put my spin on it?
Understanding Risk
Assessing risks and mitigations is difficult when you don’t know what you’re in for. Though this is an important step of the process, I found that throughout later stages of the sprint, such as prototyping and using unfamiliar software, I could identify risks more clearly and had a better grasp on how to mitigate them. Additionally, the original sprint diagram had feedback notes on this section, however when I asked my classmates and teachers for feedback no one had any positive or negative comments. I decided the feedback step was unnecessary as only I have insight to my risks and how, through experience, I have learnt to mitigate them best. A major risk I identified was time management, as a mitigation to keep track of my tasks and goals I made extensive and detailed check lists to follow which gave me a structured way to breakdown and work through large tasks.
Ideation
Iterating solutions is one of my favourite parts of the sprint. During this step I quickly prototyped low fidelity solutions and pitched them to friends and teachers for feedback. Their suggestions became the basis of my more high fidelity prototype and allowed me to step into another’s perspective. Adding feedback to these initial ideations enabled a narrower scope to work within and evaluate early on what might be a successful solution to move forward with. Lastly, I changed the feedback stakeholders to include both tutors, classmates and my sister. Due to the nature of the briefs and their focus on childhood, this meant I could tailor my ideations to our shared experience as children, rather than a classmate who doesn’t share a nostalgic steak in the project.
Defining Intent
Originally this step was to iterate more solutions and gain feedback, however at this point I often fell victim to ‘designers block’. Step three was not helpful in synthesising my ideas, rather I needed to re-evaluate what I wanted to do. Similar to the triple-diamond design model, I scoped the problem again with the knowledge and insights I had gained when creating my assumptions, during precedent research and testing my ideations. Through this I clearly defined my intent for the project in order to move forward with purpose and have a clear understanding of the key elements I wished to include in the final prototype.
Prototyping
Building the prototype included unknown processes and software in all three design sprints. This step was by far the most time consuming and I quickly learnt to try my best to stick within the 20 hour limit for each project overall. My instincts to dig deeper and strive for perfection needed to be reeled in if I wanted to complete this project on time and with my mental wellbeing still intact. Overall I really enjoyed the prototyping process, at this point in the sprint I was itching to make my ideas a reality and put my inspirations to work. Surprisingly, I found that the softwares such as Rhino for 3D modelling which I was so daunted to use in the beginning of the assignment were intuitive and easier than I had imagined.
User Feedback
It took me a while to figure out how to appropriately test my prototype. I personally don’t know of any young children who would fit within my target audience and my classmates couldn’t give the insights that I needed. One day as I was walking to class and passed by the university’s early learning center an idea hit - my users were just behind those daycare doors, all I needed to do was make a visit. By the next morning I had booked in a time to spend with the kids and had drafted questions about my prototypes. Visiting the kids was a highlight of this project, I hadn’t been exposed to young children for the majority of my life and walking into their tiny world completely shifted my perspective. During my hour-long visit, though I had originally planned to stay for half an hour, I made friends with Alice, Leon and others. They showed me their favourite toys, where the best spots to play were and I met Will’s giant toy Humpback Whale named Humpy. Going through my hour-long voice memo recording with the children made me smile, I wish I could share some snippets with you however our conversation must remain private. Though their ideas were often hard to understand through speech, I could reflect on my observations of their play to inform my insights which were often surprising and hilarious. When I spoke to Yashwin about my underwater virtual reality room he became worried, he explained that he wouldn’t be able to hold his breath for long enough to explore the space. In the future if I undertake other projects targeted for a younger audience I would love to revisit my new friends at the Early Learning Center.
Reflection
Synthesising my learnings from user testing, I can confidently say that none of my prototypes were perfect. However, I don’t think this was the point of this assignment. I learnt that managing my time and sticking to a strict 20 hours per project came with sacrifices and if I were aiming for perfection I would never get my projects finished. Another major learning point for me was not to be daunted about using new software, it’s not as hard as you think and there’s plenty of help when you look for it.
Process Commentary
After finishing the sprint document I went back through each of the design sprints and added explanatory process notes to ensure viewers of my process understood how the different stages of the sprint informed my final outcome. This also gave me time to reflect on each stage of the project and how far I’ve come since 4 weeks ago. Overall I record the time spent on each project as 15.2 hours for the App, 17.43 hours for the 3D model, and 12.99 hours for the 3D environment. In truth these times are only estimates and I likely spent far more hours on the prototyping stage than I recorded in my Miro documents. I found it difficult to record my working hours as I paced myself slowly throughout the process, my working style it to focus for 20-30 minutes and then take a break and recenter my energy. Additionally, I spent a lot of my free time thinking about these projects and developing my new steps in my mind which I did not include in the Miro board. Next time I would like to attempt a more accurate time keeping schedule and use a timer on my phone to track my working hours better.
View my prototypes
Check out my blog pages to view the final prototypes and see insights into the process for each project.
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